No Fairytales
by alison107
Summary: A GA fanfiction that encompasses most of the cast and newcomers and begins a few months after the S2 finale. Lots of drama. I think shippers of all kinds will love and hate it equally at various times. Just read and see.
1. Prologue: Knots

**Author's Note:**

This is my first Grey's Anatomy fanfiction. I used to be an avid fanfic writer in HS (5 years ago), when my passion was General Hospital fanfiction. I don't watch that show anymore because they have destroyed every character I liked, and I wanted to write some fanfiction again for a show with a large cast and GA is my favorite show.

I will warn you that a) I like to add new characters, b) I'm nobody's shipper, so no coupling is safe with my allegiance, and c) I tend to write stories with lots of characters and lots of chapters that kind of go on forever. That said, I hope you enjoy. This is a story that takes place a few months after the S2 finale. Everything else will become clear.

Along with this one, I am also working on an Ellis/Webber fanfiction (well, one for back in their day, but it has a lot of other characters, too). That one will be "released" within a week or two. Updates to this and that story should come weekly, assuming someone reads them --- which means review if you like updates because I'm flat out telling you that I'm an easily-flattered narcissist. Just kidding. Kind of. ;)

**Prologue: Knots**

The shaking hand of one of the world's best surgeons finishes his fifth one-handed knot on a cadaver in an empty section of the Seattle Grace morgue. Preston Burke has been able to stitch perfect one-handed knots since he was a third-year medical student. Come to think of it, that was the last time he remembered stitching a cold cadaver. Back then, the knots seemed to matter, even when they turned out wrong. Now, it was test.

Every time he fumbled a stitch – which wasn't often now as he had even begun to master the slight stiffness that he'd once feared might never subside – he thought about one conversation.

_It isn't like you to ask that question._

_It isn't like you not to have the answers._

Sheppard hadn't been good enough to save the hand then. The nerve damage hadn't been permanent, but Burke had been out of commission for months. Burke watched the knot form perfectly, not even thinking about the motion. Nobody had been as good as they thought this year.

Maybe they were never as good as they thought.

Meredith woke up tangled in tan sheets that didn't belong to her. Nothing really unusual except that she was alone in them. Alone, but in his blue flannel. It smelled like him. She curled out of the sheets and found her her jeans from the night before. They smelled like tequila. Or maybe she smelled like tequila. She carried her shoes and walked barefoot across wooden floors she knew fairly well. She got to the second stair, skipped the third stair because she knew it creaked, and nearly fell down the rest. He was watching her the whole time.

"You should have some coffee first," Finn said quietly.

"I'm late."

"No, you're not." He said it softly in the same tone he'd used the last night they spent together. That sad, knowing tone. "You told me last night to wake you up by eight."

Meredith nodded and sat down on the top stair. "I'm on at nine."

"Yeah."

"It's seven-thirty. Give me five minutes," he said in the same quiet tone, heading towards the bedroom, retracing her path. "I'll change, and I'll drive you back to your car."

"You don't have to."

"I will anyway."

Meredith nodded again. "There's coffee?"

"On the stove. You know where to find the cups."

"I don't want an appeal or reinstatement. I don't want the license. Take it away. Let them. I just want it to be over."

"Then sign here, Ms. Stephens," the woman told Izzie. "And our business, this lawsuit, and your medical career will all be over."

"Fine." Izzie signed her name.

"Good. Now, initial and date at the bottom."

The pen looped between her fingers. She had been fighting forever. For Denny. For herself. Never for her career. She'd been willing to give that up for him, and she'd been willing to give it up afterwards. It seemed to be all anyone wanted. She didn't have any money, and the other man had gotten his heart anyway. He was alive. He didn't stroke out a few hours after the surgery. He was still alive. If a signature would settle things and finally get her out of Seattle, then she was happy to sign away anything they wanted.

Alex was changing in the locker room. Christina was sitting on one of the benches, mostly hunched over, half-asleep.

"New interns today," George said as he opened his locker. "We are no longer at the bottom. We are officially somewhere. And Burke comes back today, right Christina?"

"Yeah. Burke comes back today. He's been here since four."

"This is a good day. We're second-years, Burke is back… This is definitely going to be a good day. We're going to save some lives. We're residents. Real, second year residents. We made it." He paused. "Well, mostly."

Alex looked up finally. "Izzie signs today. I told her not to. If she fought, she'd win."

"She doesn't want to fight," Christina said. "She's not a surgeon."

"She's still a doctor," Alex said.

"Not anymore."

George closed his locker. "Really. We're going to have a good day."

"You can't leave Seattle, Addison," Webber told her. You signed a contract with the hospital."

"And I'm asking you to let me break it. I'm asking you as a friend, Richard, to let me out of my contract without penalty. I'll pay something if you want, but let me go back to my practice in New York. Or somewhere else. Anywhere away from here."

"I have patients flying in today to see you, and you are asking me this now?"

"I'll work today."

"You'll work for the rest of the year and a half until the contract is up. I can't just let you out of your contract. We bought equipment. Residents signed up to work with you. We recruited the best and the brightest new students interested in fetal surgery, and we received a grant based on at least one study you have not yet finished," Richard Webber said sternly. "And, besides that, I don't let my friends run away."

"He left me. He cheated on me for two months, and I still wanted to make it work. But he left me. For her. And you want me to work with them?"

"How many patients require a prenatal surgical specialist and a brain surgeon at the same time?" Webber asked. "You don't have to work with him."

"I have to work with her."

"She has to work with you. You're an attending. She's a resident. And this has nothing to do with my hospital. I'm sick of hearing who's sleeping with who, Addison. If you don't want her in your surgeries, don't ask her. That's your prerogative. Leaving is not."

"Grey, you're late," Bailey said as she watched Meredith enter the surgical floor. Meredith is still wearing the same outfit from earlier, but she has coffee spilled down the front of the shirt. "And what the hell are you wearing? Never mind. I don't care."

"It's flannel."

"Didn't I just say I don't care?" Bailey asked. "New interns today. I need a second-year in the ER with them for the rest of the day, and last one to show up gets the honors. That means you. Don't let them kill anyone."

"Sure," Meredith said. "I'm going to change first."

"You do that. Quickly."

The elevator opens again, and Derek steps out. He sees Meredith walking away and walks past Bailey, trying to catch up. He's several steps behind. He follows her into the locker room. She sees him, but she doesn't say anything. She's already pulling off Finn's flannel shirt.

"What are you wearing?"

"A shirt. Made from blue flannel. It's Seattle. Has no one in Seattle seen flannel before? I find that hard to believe," Meredith said.

"There's a big stain. And it doesn't fit."

"That's because it's not mine."

"Obviously." He doesn't sound happy, but it's not the same judgmental tone she'd heard before.

"What do you want, Derek?"

"I signed the papers."

Meredith looked up for a minute as she pulled her hair back. Neither one of them spoke for at least ninety seconds. Then, she slammed her locker shut, and she finally spoke. "It doesn't matter." She pushed past him. "Excuse me. I have to work now."

**Chapter One:**


	2. Chapter One: Moments

_Author's Note: Lines of italics will generally signify a Mere VO or a song, each of which would be broken up by action, naturally. Like each episode, each chapter will have a theme and an MVO because that's just how I roll. The Prologue doesn't have one because it is not a real Chapter. I know next to nothing about medicine, but I did kind of look this stuff up and it's all semi-possible. Probably not how it'd go down, though. Oh, well. Who cuts LVAT wires in real life? Realism sucks. ;)_

**Chapter One: Moments**

Meredith (Voice Over):

_You hear it everywhere you go. Especially when things go wrong. People say that timing is everything._

The elevator door opens in front of Meredith and she walks towards the ER where she sees a clump of four interns standing outside. There are three men and one woman. Meredith looks at them and walks past them into the ER. She turns around and motions them in.

_It's that fourth, unalterable dimension that science so desperately wants to master. The difference between a moment that is no more than sixty quick, even beats can feel the expanse of thousands of miles. Or it can be nothing. _

Christina walks down the steps towards the morgue. She knows where Burke is. He's finishing his last one-handed knot. He half-smiles as he sees her, and she smiles back tersely.

"Addison Sheppard wanted me to find you."

He nods.

_In a hospital, you really should feel the importance of time. The difference between life and death is usually only a matter of minutes, but most days, those minutes, the patients we're supposed to be helping, even the surgeries we're supposed to be competing for begin to run together. _

Bailey watches the activity in the OR as scrubs in. After the OR is prepped, George enters and begins to scrub in as well.

_So, when you react, it's all about the moment. What you'll feel. What you'll do. When you get what you thought you wanted._

Meredith turns away from her group of four to see Derek entering the OR for a consult.

_When the day you've been waiting for comes, or when the fight is finally over. For better or worse._

Addison is at the admit desk as Christina and Burke walk by. They stop, and all three of them start talking. Addison leads them towards the Surgical ICU.

_They call it a change of heart for a reason. The average heart beats sixty to one hundred times per minute. _

_That's more than one chance per second to doubt everything you believed in. Everything you were. Everything you thought you knew. _

Izzie packs her things into boxes in an empty house.

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Inside the ER**

"Okay, I have two patients in need of sutures, one consult leg fracture, and one consult rule-out appy. Who wants what?" Meredith asks the interns trailing her.

Nobody speaks.

"Who wants what?" She repeats.

Everyone speaks at once. One student says, "leg pain," and the other three say, "appy."

"Who said leg pain?" Meredith asks.

"I did." The girl raises her hand. She is a pretty, dark-haired girl.

"And you are?"

"Clarissa Dellipaoli."

"Okay, Dr. Dellipaoli. See if the fracture is surgical. From the chart, it seems like it is, so if I had to guess, I'd say you win. If it is, call the ortho resident on-call. Present to me with any questions." Meredith hands Clarissa a chart. "Now, whose name begins with a T?" Meredith asks.

The male interns just look at each other.

"First or last name with a T? Anyone?" She asks again. "Okay, an S? First or last. Doesn't matter."

Two of the interns raise their hands. "Great. You two have sutures." She hands them each a chart. "And you have the rule-out appy." She hands the chart to the blond guy. "Present to me in fifteen minutes. Go." She sighs as she watches them scurry off.

Derek approaches her. "Meredith, I need someone to assist on a spinal fusion for a patient with a metastatic spinal tumor. The patient's being transferred to the surgical floor now."

"I'm supervising."

He smiles. "Well, sure. You looked in charge."

"I can't leave the ER."

"Or you turn into a pile of salt? A puddle of saline?"

Meredith doesn't smile. "I'm supposed to make sure they don't kill anyone. Bailey says."

"How do you kill someone doing sutures or assessing stomach pain?" He asks, and she gives him a dirty look. "This is a good case, Meredith. You were here. I was just giving you first in. Consider it a sort of peace offering."

"And I'm just saying, peace offering not accepted."

Derek sighs. "Okay. I'll find someone else."

"Good idea."

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Surgical ICU Room**

Burke and Christina enter behind Addison.

Christina picks up the chart and begins to present the case. "Um, this is Elyse Williams, twenty-eight years old and twenty-nine weeks pregnant. The fetus appears to have an abnormal heart muscle and what appears to be a rather extreme congenital heart defect. Fetal pulse is weak and uneven. Definite murmur and irregularity. Mrs. Williams was flown in this morning.

Elyse is a sweet, ethereal looking blond woman. Total Soccer Mom, and the kind who looks like she'd be the nicest Mom on the playground. "All the way from Pierre Eastern Hospital. In South Dakota. They flew me in a helicopter. Said I couldn't afford to wait and I couldn't fly coach," She laughs a little, nervously. "My husband's all the way in Missouri. He's a salesman. He's flying in tonight."

"Uh huh," Christina says.

"They said there was a special program. Or study," Elyse says. "I'm sorry I talk a lot when I'm nervous. Especially if Dale isn't around to tell me to pipe down and listen to the doctors."

"It's alright, Mrs. Williams," Addison says quietly. "There is a study that I began several months ago, and yours would be the forth case that I've participated on and the first one at this hospital with Dr. Burke, our cardiothoracic specialist. You have to understand that it's a very complicated surgery that's only performed in extreme cases."

"Where they don't think the baby will survive anyway," Elyse says. "I know that. I'm not… I know that. It's all there is. So, we want to try. They said I didn't have much time."

"If we're going to do the surgery, we will probably have to do it within the next 48 hours."

"Can we wait till tonight? Dale will be here then. If we can't, it's okay, but, just in case. On TV, you always see them wanting a family member nearby just in case. For anything. I'm sorry. I'm blabbering on again."

"We'll see. Dr. Yang is going to get a few more tests and do a pre-op work-up while I consult with Dr. Burke."

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Outside of the Surgical ICU**

Burke walks with Addison. "Fetal bypass," he says quietly.

"You're ready, Preston. You have 100 function back and have for a month now. You've kept yourself sharp. You're ready."

"Yeah."

"I have to do most of the cutting anyway. It's really going to be pretty boring for you. You should bring a magazine or something."

Burke smiles. "I'll see if they have any good ones downstairs."

"Not the morgue, though. Stop stitching up cadavers," Addison says as he starts to walk away. "You're freaking Christina out."

"Since when does Christina talk to you?"

"I don't know. Probably since word got around that I had the really cool fetal heart surgery." Addison says, shrugging.

Burke laughs. "Probably."

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Lab Room**

Derek is looking at scans of the spine he's going to operate on when Alex walks in.

"Bailey said you needed an assist."

"Yes. I have a spinal fusion and tumor extraction. Metastatic tumor."

"Cancer in the spine?"

"Yeah," Derek says. "Usually, at that point, they're too advanced. This man was in a bicycle accident. Hit by a neighbor backing out of their driveway. Had some initial numbness that subsided, but they ran a full battery of tests. Probably saved his life. If it works."

"Cool."

"Yeah. It really is." Derek leans back against the wall.

"So?"

"Right. Prep OR 3, and you're in. I want to be able to cut in an hour."

"Okay."

"You know, he wants to sue the guy." Derek says as Alex pushes through the door.

Alex stops. "Who?"

"The guy with the Acura. Says he ruined a three-thousand dollar bike."

"Who hit him?" Alex asks, and Derek nods. "Well, he did hit him with an Acura."

"Yeah." Derek turns back to the scans as Alex walks out.

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Lunch Area**

"I had to show the same guy three times how to do sutures today. Three times. I thought this was supposed to be a world class program," Meredith says, sitting down next to Christina. "We didn't suck this bad, did we?"

"Who sucks?" Alex asks, sitting down.

"New interns."

"Totally. I saw two of them walking around like they wanted their mommy earlier. Apparently some resident yelled at one of them for not cleaning a wound before they sutured a hand, and it traumatized him."

"I didn't yell."

"It was you? You scared the intern. Wow. He is seriously lame." Alex laughs.

"You screamed at an intern?" Christina asks.

"I didn't yell," Meredith repeats. "I – well, of course, you sanitize a wound before you sew it up. I mean, you do that. Everybody does that. Who doesn't do that?"

"Well, apparently, sutures are the first thing you forget or something. I woke up alone this morning because Burke decided to come in three hours to practice tying knots on cadavers. He's been tying knots for weeks. On these pig feet he leaves around the apartment. And this pathetic practice arm he bought on eBay or something. It's ridiculous. He's driving me crazy."

"He's scared," Meredith says. "It's normal to be scared."

"But it's over. He's better. They have tests for these things. They observed his clinical skills. He has 100 function. He's fine." Christina shrugs. "He'll be better by tonight."

"Why?"

"He's doing a fetal bypass on a fetal heart correction with Addison Sheppard. It will go amazing, and he will realize that he's fine."

"Or it'll tank, and even if it isn't his fault, he'll be even more freaked," Alex says. Christina glares at him and walks away. Meredith narrows her eyes and shakes her head. "What? You were totally thinking it."

"I didn't yell at that guy."

"Whatever. I don't care. I'll go yell at him. He's an idiot if he didn't clean the wound."

"Yeah."

"How was Izzie this morning?" Alex asks. "Before she went to sign the thing."

"I didn't see her," Meredith says.

"She wasn't home?"

"I'm not sure." Meredith stands up. "I should get back."

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**Chief's Office**

"Preston, the only one who thinks you need to be worried is you," Webber says. "Is there something the rest of us are missing? Physical therapy confirms you've had 100 function for at least a month. You've used all of the practice equipment and taken seminars. If you're worried about being rusty, you're not going to get any sharper with time."

"I know that."

"Are you saying you're out? For good?"

"It's a complicated procedure."

"You're a cardiothoracic surgeon. How many uncomplicated procedures can you think of in your field?"

"The heart in a 29-week old baby is the size of a fingernail and easier to puncture than a peeled grape."

"It's a fetal heart. Addison has done the procedure herself before, correcting the defects. She just can't put the fetus on bypass alone, and she needs a cardiothoracic assist in the OR."

"I've only done a fetal bypass once, and it was years ago."

"Addison has done dozens. She's been in more surgeries that required the procedure than any other physician in the country. You're assisting her. If this is about your nerves, you'll be fine. If this is about your hand, we need to talk about other options. Do you have full function?"

"Yes."

"Have you had any trouble at all, in terms of coordination, muscle spasms, unusual tension that impacts movement… anything symptomatic?"

"No," Burke answers somewhat steely.

"Then what?"

"It feels different. Holding the scalpel feels different. There's nothing physically wrong, but something is different."

"You lost something. You got it back. It's going to feel a little bit different."

**Grey Family House**

**Kitchen**

Izzie covers a plate of chocolate chip cookies as she eats the last piece of another cookie. She sets an envelope onto the table.

There are boxes piled by the door as she walks into the foyer.

_Meredith (Voice Over): We think we have our heart set on something. _

Izzie picks up a small duffel bag and walks out the door.

_That we've found out that this is the right time to retreat_

**Seattle Grace Hospital**

**OR #4**

_or we've finally been convinced that it is the only time to face our fears._

Addison has just opened the uterus to reveal the fetus, and Burke begins to put the 29-week old fetus onto bypass to prepare for the correction surgery.

_In up to one hundred beats a minute, if there is one beat of clarity, where we finally know what we want, we think maybe the when and the waiting won't matter anymore. _

Derek makes the first incision to reveal the patients spinal column underneath.

_Maybe now we can make it the right time. We want to believe that we can understand time. Ignore it. Use it. Change it. But you can't ever make it the right time._

Meredith looks exhausted as she walks out of the ER.

_Things just happen. Sometimes, we get a miracle. Sometimes, an accident that shows us something just in time. What needed to be cut out._

Derek puts a large piece of the removed tumor into a surgical basin.

_Or what we gave up too easily._

Izzie is waiting for a plane in an airport bar when a man a few feet away starts choking.

_The one thing about time is that it's impossible to control, and sometimes, you find out what you want, _

Derek scrubs out of surgery and sees Meredith walking through the surgical floor through the window. He starts to walk out towards her, but she's already in the elevator. The door closes right before he gets there.

_what you'll miss, and who you are too late to do what you wish you could_

Izzie gives the stranger the Heimlich, the peanut he was choking on pops out, and he starts breathing again. He starts laughing and moves to hug her, but she just walks away. She sighs and throws her ticket in the trash on her way out the bar, presumably going back home to the Grey house.

_or too late to have what you know you should. _

Meredith walks into Finn's office. No one is downstairs, so she heads up the stairs with a flannel shirt in hand.

_What's the point of a change of heart that comes too late? Maybe it's just to show us the importance of trying to run at the right pace and find our moments wherever they are. _

More soon!


End file.
